Fed-up drivers are facing longer journey times during their daily commute as traffic across the North East slows down.

Commutes in Tyne and Wear are getting slower with speeds on some roads down by more than a fifth compared to last year.

Official figures from the Department for Transport show that the average speed on the region’s A roads during rush hour was 22.4 mph in the year to September 2015 - a slight decrease on the average of 23.4 mph for the previous year.

However some roads have seen a significantly steeper decline in speeds during the morning commute with the A19 Northbound in South Tyneside seeing the biggest drop.

Rush hour speeds on the road were down to 18.9 mph on average in the 12 months to September 2015. This was whopping drop of 21.6 per cent compared to the 24.1mph average speed in the year to September 2014.

Nicholas Ashby, 33, of East Boldon, travels from South to North Tyneside, through the Tyne Tunnel, as part of his daily commute.

He said: “This had got a lot better after the second Tyne Tunnel opened. That stretch of the A19 got quicker and things looked promising.

“I think part of the reason why things are slower is more cars on the road, plus the roundabout at Testos really slows things down and often has accidents.”

Last year, the Government announced a new multi-million pound project to speed up traffic on the Northbound stretch of the A19 in the area.

The A19/A184 Testo’s junction improvement scheme involves raising the A19 carriageway and carrying it over the existing roundabout, slightly to the west, via two bridges.

The A1018 Southbound in Sunderland had the next biggest drop with speeds down by 21.1 per cent to just 16.5 mph.

The slowest A road in the Tyne and Wear area during rush hour over the past year was the A185 Westbound in Gateshead, heading towards the Heworth roundabout from South Tyneside, where average speeds reached just 9.8 mph during the morning commute.

Chris Rankin, 29, who commutes to Heworth Metro before getting a Metro into Newcastle where he works, said: “I’ve started parking at Heworth because I can’t face the traffic on the Felling Bypass, especially with the recent roadworks. But just getting to Heworth can be a struggle these days. Personally, I just think there’s too much traffic on the roads.

In year ending September 2015, average speeds on A roads in England during the weekday morning peak were 23.6 mph. This is a 0.5% decrease on the year ending June 2015.

For individual months, average speeds on local A roads in England were slower across July and September 2015, with decreases of 2.2% and 3.5% respectively, compared to the same months in 2014. The month of August 2015 is excluded from this measure.

The DfT notes that the fall in average speeds observed in recent years is likely to be partly attributed to increases in traffic levels on the A road network over the same period and that intermittent periods of high rainfall may also help to explain some of the observed decreases in speed.